


in the aftermath.

by doctorkaitlyn



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Coda, Episode: s06e09 Coda, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Pregnancy, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 02:05:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6034024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the sun’s rays have started gleaming on the putrid corpses dotting Alexandria’s streets and before they start rebuilding, Daryl finally has a moment to reconnect with Maggie and Glenn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the aftermath.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MrowSaystheCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrowSaystheCat/gifts).



> contains some spoilers for episode nine of season six.

In the aftermath, after the sun’s rays have started gleaming on the dozens (no, hundreds) of putrid corpses littering Alexandria’s previously pristine streets, all Daryl can smell is blood and rot. 

The wound on his back is still stinging slightly and despite Denise’s best efforts, he knows that it isn’t going to heal clean. Just another scar to add to the others, another scar that he’ll forget about until Maggie or Glenn’s fingers trail over it at night, when they’re pressed together in their too-small bed, warm enough that they don’t need the covers.

He just hopes that Denise thoroughly cleaned the thing out. The fucker’s knife had been filthy and the last thing Daryl wants to do is die from some bullshit infection. 

The scratch twinges as he shifts slightly, settling himself back against the wall. He’s in a room on the second floor of the building that serves as their infirmary, sitting in a patch of sunlight and trying not to breathe through his nose. He needs a shower, needs to scrub off the layers of grime and blood and caked on gore from his hands, but the only bathroom in the house is currently occupied by a revolving door of people and Daryl doesn’t really feel like heading back across town to his house. 

He needs a few more minutes of respite from the sheer amount of death outside. 

His eyes feel gummed over, like the only thing keeping them open is putty made from exhaustion. Just thinking about the clean sheets stretched over his bed on the other side of town makes his head droop slightly and he jerks it back up, focusing on a spot on the wall where a painting used to hang. It’s a discolored square, a lighter yellow than the rest of the room, and he wonders if the painting was as hideous as some of the others that dot the houses in the community, if someone just finally looked at it one day and said _fuck that thing is ugly_ and hid it in the back of a closet or under a bed. 

He also wonders if he would even be thinking about this shit if he wasn’t so damn tired. 

The stairs creak and he glances over at the doorway. A few moments later, Michonne walks by in bare feet, her clothes and arms clean, cradling Judith against her chest. She nods at him as she goes by and he returns the gesture. He’s glad to see that the baby made it through okay (and if what he heard is right, his level of respect for Father Gabriel is definitely on the up), but the thought of her brother lying downstairs, one of his eye sockets torn to shreds, makes his empty stomach clench. 

It also gives him fucking déjà vu. 

The stairs creak again but this time, the sound is accompanied by soft voices that he knows all too well. He hauls himself to his feet and gets himself situated against the windowsill by the time Maggie and Glenn come in. They’re both still filthy as well, hair tangled and clothes ripped, showing patches of pale skin underneath. Glenn’s neck is covered in blood from the base of his throat to the curve of his chin, nearly hiding the smattering of hair growing there. He has a mustache as well, a straggle of coarse dark hairs above his upper lip and Daryl has the urge to reach out and run his thumb over it. It’s the same urge he had back in the tanker, but it’d been overshadowed then by the sheer _need_ to yank Glenn across the bench seat towards him, just for a few seconds, enough to find a hint of Glenn’s natural smell underneath everything else, to assure himself that Glenn was still warm and alive and intact. 

“When you gonna shave it off?” he asks, succumbing to the urge and reaching up to cradle Glenn’s face, scratching his thumb through the hairs. 

“Soon as I can find a razor,” Glenn chuckles wearily, leaning his head into Daryl’s palm.

“You know, I kinda like it,” Maggie says, scratching at Glenn’s chin. “It’s cute.” 

“It’s _not_ staying,” Glenn replies, wrapping one arm around Maggie’s waist and pulling her in closer. Some of her hair has fallen over her eyes and Daryl does his best to push it away, so that he can see her whole face. It doesn’t really work, but she gives him a small smile anyways and steps closer, until their shoulders are bumping. 

“Carl woke up,” she says quietly, wrapping her arm around his back. “Just long enough to squeeze Rick’s finger, but still. It’s better than nothing.” 

“Yeah,” Daryl mutters, tugging them both in and burying his face into the space between their necks. It takes all of his effort to stay on his feet; he just wants to slump to the floor and pull them with him, stay there until they have to go back outside and begin the clean-up, get back to reinforcing the walls, making them stronger. 

( _Your property now belongs to Negan_ echoes in his head. He wonders if he should tell them that, tell them about the group they ran into, the ringleader with the soft voice and greasy hair and utterly empty eyes. 

He’ll tell them all later, unless Abraham beats him to it. One thing at a time.) 

He doesn’t know how long the three of them stay like that, limbs tangled, locked together in an embrace that manages to distract him from the memories unspooling in his head, from the thought that they’re back to square one, that they’re vulnerable again. He keeps his fingers tangled in the hem of Glenn’s shirt, the fabric whisper-thin, ready to tear at any moment. Maggie’s hand is smooth on his back, underneath his vest and shirt, fingers rhythmically whisking back and forth, thumb occasionally catching on old scars. 

(Sometimes, that’s the only thing that can lure him to sleep: the feeling of her fingers smoothing over his back. If he just focuses on it, breathing in and out in time with her movements, sometimes he can skip over the nightmare stage for a few hours.) 

Glenn pulls away first, sliding out of Daryl’s grip with a quick kiss to his forehead. His eyes go to Maggie and they share a look, some flurry of thoughts and understanding that passes between them in only a few seconds. Daryl used to be jealous of those looks, thought that their presence somehow made what he had with Maggie and Glenn less in some way, but he’d moved past that eventually, realized that what he had with them was just different. 

“We’ve got something to tell you,” Maggie says, fingers twisting together with Glenn’s. 

“We would have told you earlier, if we'd known that we were going to be away for so long,” Glenn adds. He reaches out and takes Daryl’s hand as well before glancing at Maggie again. Daryl spends the next few moments trying to keep himself from jumping to conclusions. After living in such close quarters for so long, it's become nigh on impossible for any of them to keep a secret anymore. He’s overheard things about everyone, known things about Maggie and Glenn before either of them told him, just from it being passed down through the grapevine. 

If both of them managed to keep this silent for more than a few days, it’s got to be a doozy, maybe even a gamechanger. 

“Daryl,” Maggie says, squeezing his hand tight enough to make his fingers throb, “I’m pregnant.” 

Well, if that isn’t the very definition of a gamechanger, Daryl doesn’t know what is. He sags back against the windowsill before he can stop himself, eyes automatically going to Maggie’s stomach. It doesn’t look any larger than normal but he knows that doesn’t mean anything, not this early. 

“You’re sure?” he asks cautiously. There’d been a scare, back at the prison, right around the time they were starting to figure out the mechanics of whatever the hell it was the three of them had going on. She’d looked scared that time, worn out and face drawn, jumped whenever Judith's cries had echoed around the cellblock. Daryl had spent those weeks waiting for a confirmation one way or another, catching Glenn’s eye whenever he could, trying to come up with plans for whatever decision Maggie wanted to make. 

In the end, they’d woken up one day to blood on the sheets, and the scare had faded away into the back of their minds. 

But there’s nothing like fright on Maggie’s face now, as she nods. She smiles, an actual grin from ear to ear, her eyes glimmering under her long eyelashes. Even with the grime and blood streaked across her face, it’s the most beautiful Daryl's ever seen her and a laugh escapes from between his bitten lips. 

“A baby,” he mutters, slowly reaching out and placing his hand on Maggie’s stomach, just above her belt buckle. He may not be able to see it, but sure enough, there’s a little bit of a bump there, pressing against his splayed fingers. “You’re going to have a baby.” 

“Yeah,” Maggie says, one tear tracking a clean trail down her cheek. She reaches out for Glenn’s hand and places it on top of Daryl’s before putting her own on top of both of them. “I’m going to have our baby.” 

Daryl wants to sag back to the floor. He wants to fall into the nearby bed and bring both of them with him, keep them close enough to feel their heartbeats at their wrists and throats. He wants to put his ear to Maggie’s stomach and listen as hard as he can, pretend that he can hear the heartbeat of the new life growing inside of her. 

But since there really isn’t enough time for any of that, he wants to do the next best thing instead. 

He wants (no, _needs_ ) to get back outside, exhaustion be damned, and start cleaning up the corpses riddling the streets. He wants to get rid of any other stragglers that escaped last night, add them to the bonfire that’ll soon be raging. He wants to get the walls back up, strengthen them until not even God himself could knock them over. 

He wants to do anything he can to make Alexandria safe, to make it unbreachable, so that their child will have a home. So that they all can have a home.

He reluctantly drops his hand from Maggie’s stomach and quickly kisses both her and Glenn on the cheek, finding the cleanest patch of skin that he can. When he glances out the window behind him, he can see Rosita and Sasha down in the streets, hauling walkers away alongside a few Alexandrians. 

“C’mon,” he says, glancing back at them, chest aching with the sheer desire to pull them back to him, hold them there until that’s all he can breathe and see and feel. “Let’s get started.”

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
